Dereliction of duty

As the scale of the death and destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi seemingly continues to worsen, it's difficult to know quite what to say.

It beggars belief that the administration of the richest and most advanced nation on the planet could not have reacted quicker to save and help its citizens. The disaster may have been natural, but the inadequacy and slowness of the response is entirely manmade. Some might feel it's the wrong time for political debate and finger-pointing, but it's not - Bush and company have an awful lot of explaining to do, not least on the issue of the budget cuts that have crippled the emergency services and rescue operations.

One person who's been asking awkward questions is Howell Raines, a former editor of the New York Times. In this article he celebrates what made the now devastated city of New Orleans so special and expresses disgust at the way Bush has responded to the crisis: "This president, who flew away on Monday to fundraisers in the west while the hurricane blew away entire towns in coastal Mississippi, is very much his father's son when it comes to the kinds of emergencies that used to call forth immediate White House action before its Bushite captivity. When he was president, his father did not visit Miami after Hurricane Andrew, nor for that matter, did he mind being photographed tooling his golf cart around Kennebunkport while American troops died in the first Iraq war. Now the younger Bush seems determined to show his successors how to holiday through an apocalypse".

Equally appalled is Bill of Orbis Quintus, who lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana: "The response to the worst natural disaster to hit the United States has been a disgrace and an embarrassment".

Thousands of people have lost their lives and incompetence and mismanagement are largely to blame. It will take years for the cities, the region, the survivors to recover. Bush's political reputation may not.

(Thanks to Dr Migs for the link to the Raines article.)